History Main / LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard

** It even gets lampshaded in ''Series/MacGyver2016''. When Mac gets put into protective custody by his boss, Thornton has all the furnishings of the room he's locked into removed first, claiming that if they left him a chair, he'd somehow turn it into a cannon.

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** It even gets lampshaded in ''Series/MacGyver2016''. When Mac gets put into protective custody by his boss, Thornton has all the furnishings of the room he's locked into removed first, claiming that if they left him a chair, he'd somehow turn it into a cannon. Mac then proceeded to break out using some wire pulled out of the ceiling and an electrical outlet.

** It even gets lampshaded in ''Series/MacGyver2016''. When Mac gets put into protective custody by his boss, Thornton has all the furnishings of the room he's locked into removed first, claiming that if they left him a chair, he'd somehow turn it into a cannon.

* In ''Literature/CodexAlera'', not [[TailorMadePrison tailor-making]] one's prison to counter the prisoner's Furycrafting capability counts as this. Since pretty much everyone in Alera knows this it's most often averted, but the Canim leader Laharl (who has never been to Alera and regards reports of Furycrafting as myths) plays it quite straight. When he wants to imprison Tavi's group of ambassadors (which includes several windcrafters, one of whom can fly), he strands them on a rooftop with no way down.-->'''Max''': They cannot possibly be serious.

** Competing with the above example, and perhaps even more bizarre, is the episode ''The Heart of Rock and Roll'', where the team is captured inside a prison, yet are inexplicably locked up in an unguarded workshop. The guards don't even bother handcuffing them.

* ''AGreyWorld'' Although she doesn't manage to escape Alexis frees herself from her bounds as well as fashioning a crude but deadly knife and spear from some light-fittings, her bounds and the chair she was tied to.* ''TechInfantry'' has Xinjao O'Reilly and his engineering crew captured and locked in a storage room for tools and spare parts when their space station is seized by rebels. They waste no time in grabbing tools, using them to open access panels, and escape into the maintenance spaces inside the bulkheads. Lampshaded when Xinjao incredulously remarks on how stupid it is to lock up a bunch of starship engineers in the tool closet on their own space station.* [[http://imago.hitherby.com/?p=227 This]] ''HitherbyDragons'' story has minions discussing where to lock [=MacGyver=], before having to, reluctantly, lock him in a bare room.

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* ''AGreyWorld'' ''Literature/AGreyWorld'' Although she doesn't manage to escape Alexis frees herself from her bounds as well as fashioning a crude but deadly knife and spear from some light-fittings, her bounds and the chair she was tied to.* ''TechInfantry'' ''TabletopGame/TechInfantry'' has Xinjao O'Reilly and his engineering crew captured and locked in a storage room for tools and spare parts when their space station is seized by rebels. They waste no time in grabbing tools, using them to open access panels, and escape into the maintenance spaces inside the bulkheads. Lampshaded when Xinjao incredulously remarks on how stupid it is to lock up a bunch of starship engineers in the tool closet on their own space station.* [[http://imago.hitherby.com/?p=227 This]] ''HitherbyDragons'' ''Literature/HitherbyDragons'' story has minions discussing where to lock [=MacGyver=], before having to, reluctantly, lock him in a bare room.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'', a TV anchorman tires of the Warners' antics and locks them inside the control room. When Dot asks why he would do that, Yakko responds "I don't know. Maybe he wants us to direct." Sure enough, they start messing around with the video controls and screwing up the broadcast until the anchorman is driven mad.

** Another example, from ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', has a specific ShoutOut to ''Series/MacGyver'' and/or ''Series/TheATeam'' - "some villains are obliging enough to lock you in a warehouse with enough equipment to build a fully functional armoured car".

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** Another example, from ''Discworld/FeetOfClay'', has a specific ShoutOut to ''Series/MacGyver'' and/or ''Series/TheATeam'' - -- "some villains are obliging enough to lock you in a warehouse with enough equipment to build a fully functional armoured car".

* Creator/StephenKing's fantasy novel ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon'' has an extremely long sequence of this as its main plot, with the only item used for escape being [[spoiler:napkin threads, woven into a rope over three years to climb down a tower. Slightly subverted in that the escape plan has a flaw the budding [=MacGyver=] doesn't know about - a long rope made of napkin threads has to be able to hold its ''own'' weight as well.]]

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* Creator/StephenKing's fantasy novel ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon'' has an extremely long sequence of this as its main plot, with the only item used for escape being [[spoiler:napkin threads, woven into a rope over three years to climb down a tower. Slightly subverted in that the escape plan has a flaw the budding [=MacGyver=] doesn't know about - -- a long rope made of napkin threads has to be able to hold its ''own'' weight as well.]]

* Subverted for laughs in ''Literature/{{The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn}}'' where Jim is shackled to a bedpost and could escape simply by lifting the bed of the ground, but Tom Sawyer knows that this is not how it is done in prisoner novels, so instead has Jim saw his way through the bedpost. Of course, Tom also knows (but Jim and Huck do not) that [[spoiler: Jim's owner has set him free in her will; he will soon be able to leave at any time]].

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* Subverted for laughs in ''Literature/{{The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn}}'' where Jim is shackled to a bedpost and could escape simply by lifting the bed of off the ground, but Tom Sawyer knows that this is not how it is done in prisoner novels, so instead has Jim saw his way through the bedpost. Of course, Tom also knows (but Jim and Huck do not) that [[spoiler: Jim's owner has set him free in her will; he will soon be able to leave at any time]].

The episode was inspired by a marginally harder-science story of the same name by FredricBrown (who got an on-screen writing credit), in which the trick is to get through a force field that allows nothing conscious to pass. The alien builds a passable catapult while the human comes up with some flaming missiles, then knocks himself out to fall through the barrier (which up until this point he thought only allowed non''living'' things to pass) and stabs the alien to death with a stone knife.

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The episode was inspired by a marginally harder-science story of the same name by FredricBrown Creator/FredricBrown (who got an on-screen writing credit), in which the trick is to get through a force field that allows nothing conscious to pass. The alien builds a passable catapult while the human comes up with some flaming missiles, then knocks himself out to fall through the barrier (which up until this point he thought only allowed non''living'' things to pass) and stabs the alien to death with a stone knife.

* In ''[[VideoGame/NancyDrew Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake]]'', Nancy Drew gets knocked out, tied up, and dumped in a shed that's then set on fire. The shed just happens to contain an assortment of junk that she can use to get free, merely by ''kicking'' the right objects.

** At the beginning of ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', Moist van Lipwig has spent several weeks removing the mortar around a large flagstone in his condemned cell with his prison issued spoon. This wears the spoon away to basically nothing, but he finally succeeds in moving the stone - only to discover a much-better reinforced wall and a fresh spoon on the other side. The guards then immediately come and congratulate him for not giving up, and reveal that at least one other seeming flaw in the cell wouldn't allow a prisoner to escape either. This prison may not exactly be inescapable, but in order to do so you would have to out-think [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy Vetinari]].

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** At the beginning of ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', Moist van Lipwig has spent several weeks removing the mortar around a large flagstone in his condemned cell with his prison issued spoon. This wears the spoon away to basically nothing, but he finally succeeds in moving the stone - only to discover a much-better reinforced wall and a fresh spoon on the other side. The guards then immediately come and congratulate him for not giving up, and reveal that at least one other seeming flaw in the cell wouldn't allow a prisoner to escape either. This prison may not exactly be inescapable, but in order to do so you would have to out-think [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy Vetinari]].Vetinari.

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